Driver Education Initiative Award: In the Driver's Seat Essay

Serena Seymour Admittingly, far more people are injured or killed in fatal car accidents every day, most of which could have been prevented if greater precautionary measures had been taken. Such awareness can only exist, however, through the practice of safe driving that comes from greater driver education. Uneducated drivers are prone to ignorance of the proper rules of the road that often leads to unnecessary casualties. Many young teens are killed in accidents all due to speeding and their lack of knowledge of just how much damage can be done while speeding in the span of a few seconds. As a young student driver, I personally take my time to follow all laws and be the safest, most responsible driver I can, as I have been in a car accident myself which had the potential of being deadly. I was riding in the front seat of my grandmother’s truck, with my grandmother sitting on the passenger side and her friend in the driver’s seat; I was sitting in the middle. In hindsight, I was way too young to be sitting in the front seat with only a booster seat propping me up. Both windows were cracked open slightly and my grandmother wanted to close both of them, but she seemed to be having trouble closing them. The driver was telling her what to do, but in the frustration of the moment, leaned over to close the window himself. My grandmother was also leaning over to his side messing with his window. At the same time, we were approaching a red light at full speed, but both of them were too distracted to notice and we ran the red light at a busy intersection. Another driver who had the right of way hit us at full force on the right side of the truck bed, causing us to spin many times before stopping in the middle of traffic. Had the circumstances been slightly different, we would have been hit in the door and someone in the truck could have been killed, but we got lucky that time. While the truck was totaled, at least everyone else was safe. I was definitely stirred by that incident, and I learned my lesson that day to always pay attention to the road. One very important aspect about safe driving is to always make the safety of other drivers and innocent pedestrians your top priority; we should be looking out for others before ourselves. A pedestrian’s life matters just as much as your own. This is why good driver education means stressing the idea that a driver should always assume that there is another driver or bystander in the vicinity that they should be looking out for. A safe driver is one who always proceeds with caution, not assuming the road is clear, and yields the right of way when they should. In brief, more people would become safer drivers if they understood the importance of having compassion for the ones they share the road with.